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EAGLE FEATHER RESEARCH NEWSLETTER

VOL III, NO. 8, August, 2010

Welcome, Wilkommen, Bienvenue, Bienvenidos, Benvenuto. Welcome to our August issue covering political fabrications, Monsanto and its monopoly, the future giant telescopes and Myth vs Fact regarding Mexicans in history.

POLITICIANS AND THE TRUTH: POWER, POSITION AND THE GREENBACK

Last spring, PolitiFact won the Pulitzer Prize for national reporting for its commitment to “separating rhetoric from truth to enlighten voters.” Bill Adair, its founder explains it is a different brand of journalism because they make the call. Now, PolitiFact Texas in conjunction with Austin’s Austin American-Statesman is ready to clear the exaggerations, spins, misrepresentations and outright lies by politicians in Texas. It is the unveiling of a political truth-testing project in which claims made by politicians are examined, researched and scored as True, Mostly True, Half True, Barely True or False. The most ridiculous assertion earns a special category—a Pants on Fire rating or ridiculous and outright lie. Beyond the candidates for Texas governor, PolitiFact covers the nation and is expanding to include more areas. The two candidates vying for Governor are Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and incumbent Gov. Rick Perry. Let us see if there is any integrity in these politicians’ statements:

Sen. Hutchison: Her ad states that she got “quadrupled agents to secure our border.”Ruling: Barely true.

Gov.Perry: Boasted that Texas accounted for 70% of all jobs created in the U.S. in 2007-2008.Ruling: False

Hank Gilbert: Democratic candidate for agriculture commissioner states that “poor oversight” by the Texas Agriculture Commission led to deaths and illnesses traced to a Texas peanut plant.Ruling: Half True

Lamar Smith: In response to immigration laws, he said that undocumented workers occupy 8 million jobs.Ruling: Mostly True (it is 7 million)

Farouk Shami: Democratic candidate for Governor states “he brought 1,200 jobs to Texas by moving his factories from China.Ruling: Half True (it was from Korea)

Republican Party of Texas: States that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Bill White is for gay marriage.Ruling: False

Governor Perry: States that Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson voted for sanctuary cities.Ruling: False

Additionally, PolitiFact.com has ratings for the rest of the country, e.g.:

Newt Gingrich: A recent Obama executive order could "lead to a number of investigations by Interpol in the United States, potentially aimed at American officials."Ruling: Pants on Fire or ridiculous outright lie

Rudy Giuliani: "We had no domestic attacks under Bush."Ruling: Pants on fire or ridiculous outright lie

Dick Cheney: President Obama "doesn't ... want to admit we're at war."Ruling: Pants on Fire or ridiculous outright lie

James Inhofe: The Climatic Research Unit e-mails show that the science behind climate change "has been pretty well debunked."Ruling: False

Glen Beck: Less than 10 percent of Obama's Cabinet appointees "have any experience in the private sector."Ruling: False

Lou Dobbs: On legalizing illegal immigrants.Ruling: Does half flip on subject.

Sarah Palin: Says she couldn't take stimulus money because it required "universal building codes."; "Ronald Reagan faced an even worse recession" than the current one.Ruling: False

Michele Backmann: Page 92 of the House health care bill "says specifically that people can't purchase private health insurance after a date certain." Ruling: Pants on Fire or ridiculous outright lie

Mary Matalin: "For the last decade the climate has been cooling."Ruling: False

Nancy Pelosi: About 750,000 people die in China each year from auto emissions.Ruling: Barely True (it is both water and air pollution)

Rush Limbaugh: "President Obama . . . wants to mandate circumcision."Ruling: Pants on Fire or ridiculous outright lie

Michael Steele: The Department of Veterans Affairs has "a manual out there telling our veterans stuff like, 'Are you really of value to your community?' You know, encouraging them to commit suicide."Ruling: Pants on Fire or ridiculous outright lie

Howard Dean: "Every other democracy in the world has a health care system that covers everybody, and we don't."Ruling: False (only majority of industrialized countries)(After one year, the following is President Obama’s score in the Obameter Scorecard)

Promise Kept 91 Compromise 33 Promise Broken 14 Stalled 87 In the Works 275 Not yet rated 2

(For details on the aforementioned, google PolitiFact.)MONSANTO: SOWING SEEDS OF MONOPOLY?

Today, the vast majority of the nation’s two primary crops grow from seeds genetically altered according to Monsanto company patents: 93% of soybeans, 80% of corn. But farmers now decry the prices set by Monsanto which have doubled in the last decade and competitorssay the company has ruthlessly eliminated competition. During the Bush administration, the Justice Department did not file a single case under anti-monopoly laws regulating a dominant firm. But now under the Obama administration, Monsanto, IBM and Google are coming under scrutiny by U.S. anti-trust investigators for past and “extreme hesitancy in the face of potential abuses by monopoly firm.” Farmers heretofore, had not complained because genetic modifications saved work and enabled them to cultivate more land. Moreover, the modified plants could stand up to the powerful herbicide glyphosphate commonly known as Roundup. This brings up two issues: are we harming the original chemistry by genetic alteration and should the food chain be poisoned by the highly toxic chemical of Roundup? Law suits have begun from Canada to India. In the case of Canada, germination of genetic altered plants has invaded fields that are original and organic. In India, protests are common against Monsanto as seeds and plants that have been part of our food chain for millennia are being lost to corporate giants like Monsanto. Dupont, a competitor states that “Monsanto has abused its unlawfully-acquired monopoly power to block out competition, thwart innovation and extract from farmers unjustified price increase of over 100 percent in recent years.” While the corporate giants fight for more profit and a financial power base, the consumers have no choice but to take whatever they decide you should have, whether it is genetically altered foods or infested plants with toxic herbicides.THE GIANT MAGELLAN TELESCOPE ET.AL. : LOOKING BACK 13 BILLION YEARS

Three giant telescopes, many times stronger than any in existence, will give scientists a better view as they study the processes that created the cosmos. Actually, the giant Magellan telescope is one of three giant telescopes under construction. The Magellan which will be 80 ft across will be situated in Las Campanas, Chile, a thirty meter telescope measuring 98 ft across in Mauna Kea, Hawaii and the European Extremely Large Telescope will be 138 ft across. Its location is to be announced later. Compare these figures to the Mount Wilson telescope where Edwin Hubble made some of the greatest scientific discoveries of the XXth century that only measures 8 ft across. These giant telescopes are like time machines that will be up to 100 times more sensitive than before. Scientists say they will scroll the calendar back more than 13 billion years, to the era when the first structures in the universe began forming out of the murky plasma

that dominated the first few hundred thousand years after the Big Bang. That era is referred to the Dark Ages because the universe, mostly made of hydrogen atoms, was neutral and opaque, without stars. The next 5 billion to 6 billion years were when the universe developed into the form we now know. Scientists expect to witness the first galaxies, study the first black holes and find planets outside our solar system. Markus Kissler-Patig, the project scientist for the European telescope affirms its giant “light bucket” might see Earthlike planets for the first time, “if the star is close enough.” Most important are answers to questions in cosmology today: What are dark matter and dark energy? These telescopes are not cheap. The new James Webb Space Telescope expected to succeed the current Hubble Space Telescope will be launched in 2013 at a cost of $3.5 billion. The land telescope aforementioned will cost up to 1.5 billion. The race is on to the future when we will afford a glimpse of our past.MYTH VS FACT: MEXICANS

Myth---Mexicans are dirty, lazy and prone to insanity.

Fact----Prejudice against Mexicans is seen very early in colonial U.S. Much of this has its origin in hatred against all Catholics. There is a corpus of literature reflecting not only hatred but hyperbole and fabrication. It was also racially motivated as Mexicans were seen as “half breeds” prone to insanity. It is in the primers, histories and even the pulpit. (John Cotton, Thomas Hooker) The war against Mexico was inevitable since it was earmarked for invasion/conquest as early as 1767 by Benjamin Franklin. Defamation was once again in order.

Myth---Whipping and branding of slaves in the Americas by both the Spanish and Euro-Americans is a unique practice developed in the Americas.

Fact----This practice stems directly from the Romans and was introduced into Europe after the expansion of the Roman Empire. The branding on the cheeks and/or thighs of Native Americans was extended moreover, to African slaves.

Myth---Indian codices are used to support the views of human sacrifice, cannibalism and barbarism of Aztecs. Mexican and U.S. histories support this view.

Fact---The Florentine Codex is the most widely used Codex for interpreting the Aztecs. This was written by a clergyman (Bernardino de Sahagún) that used Christianized natives as informants. It is not pre-Columbian. All written material was under the control and censorship of the Inquisition, specifically the Consejo de las Indias after 1550.. Moreover, King Phillip of Spain ordered that all materials written must have his approval. Sahagún was constantly in trouble with his Order for even thinking about writing on “Indian” culture. They punished him by taking away his informants leaving him without counsel or direction. There is evidence from Sahagún himself regarding the Church and Inquisition tampering with his work; ergo the fabricated insertion by Councils of the Inquisition for the next 300 years of countless barbaric deeds of the native culture.

Happy and Insightful Reading,

Arnoldo Carlos Vento, Ph.D